John 20

Discussion Questions

• Which of the three, John, Peter, or Thomas, do you relate to most right now? In your life, has there been anything you had to “enter into” or “see with your own eyes” before you could fully believe?
• Mary did not recognize Jesus until He spoke her name. Have you ever experienced a moment where faith became personal rather than theoretical?
• Considering the statement, “It really happened … and it really matters,” how should that change the way you live this coming week?

Transcript

So glad to be together on this Easter Sunday. As others have said, I add my gratitude there as well. We want to thank the folks from around the world who joined us within the last week online: Yucaipa, California; Calgary, Alberta, Canada; Mineola, Texas; and Dallas, Texas. Any Texans here at all? Oh, okay. Good. I like a good woot every now and then. That’s good. So, we’re here talking about the resurrection today. I’m going to let the guys in the booth run the slides as this is not on again. So, if you guys are with me there, “Christus Victor, the Hope in Life and Death” is the title of this little study. And we’re going to take a look at what the Bible actually says about it. I might ask a few questions at the beginning, because there may be people here that maybe haven’t been in church very, very much. Or maybe this is the first time we’ve ever come to a Christian church, and perhaps some questions about the resurrection have rolled across your mind as well. Why have Christians all over the world celebrated this kind of an event for 2000 years?

Is the resurrection of Jesus a testable historical event, or is it an elaborate hoax designed to prop up the image of some kind of a tragic martyr figure? And if the resurrection really did happen, what difference does it make to us 2000 years ago? I think those are really good questions. Now I see we have people at the ready who would like to hand out Bibles. So, if you would like one to follow along reading John, Chapter 20 the text, just raise your hand. So helpful to have the text in front of you as we read what the Bible actually says about the resurrection. And while you’re turning there in your Bibles or swiping there on your devices, I want to offer up this quote from Professor John Lennox. He said, “Within the Christian faith, we find a Creator who becomes part of our shared experience in this broken world, including experiencing pain, evil, and suffering.” Certainly, one of the questions a lot of people ask about the Christian faith is where was God in this? Why did this happen? Why did this happen now? Why did this happen to me? And where was God in all of this? And so, Lennox is giving a good answer. I believe it when he’s saying it’s a shared experience.

Is creator God in the Christian faith. He comes into the broken world, and He experiences pain, evil, and suffering. What did he do about it? Great question again. “He took it full on. He went to the cross, died and was buried. Then he rose again three days later, proving that He had the power over death and could offer life and a destiny to those who would believe in him.” And so today, at the very minimum, we’re going to at least ask you: Will you believe in Him? Do you believe in Him? I think it’s important. Let’s see what the text says. John, Chapter 20 is where we’ll be if you want to turn there with me and before I read the text, let me just offer up this little prayer for illumination. We’ll need the Holy Spirit’s help as we take a look at what might be familiar to some of you, and not at all familiar to others. Father, as we open our hearts and minds to Your Word, may Your promises become our inexhaustible hope and our proper confidence. Father, may Your purposes become our meaning and our mission. May Your presence here among us become our delight and our joy. And, Lord, may Your resurrection power give us, we pray, a clearer vision of Your truth, a greater faith in Your power, and a more confident assurance of Your love for us. This we pray in the strong name of Jesus. Amen and Amen.

John, Chapter 20 goes exactly like this: “Now, on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene came early to the tomb…” Remember, Jesus is dead and buried. Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus took His body off the cross the evening of Good Friday and took it to Joseph of Arimathea’s tomb. They buried Him there, Jesus, who died on the cross for borrowed sins. They weren’t His sins; they were borrowed sins. He now laid in a borrowed tomb. And He, as we know this morning, when you celebrate the resurrection, He will literally do to Joseph of Arimathea, His tomb and to His own tomb what He intends to do to our tombs as well. So, Mary Magdalene comes early in the day to the tomb while it was still dark. She’s an early riser. How many morning people are here? Raise your hand if you’re a morning person. Come on, be brave. I mean, I know the people that don’t have their hands up, don’t like you already know that. I’m a morning person. I love it but not everybody in my household is one. So, I try to be quiet instead of jumping up and going, “Seize the day!” Yeah, but Mary Magdalene was a morning person. She came very early while it was still dark, and she saw the stone already taken away from the tomb.

Now, I will argue for all the rest of my life that that stone was rolled away not as Jesus could get out. He already is. We know because we’ve read the rest of the story. He’s going to appear in rooms without opening a door to get in. He didn’t need the stone moved. I think that stone was rolled away so we could get in, so we could see He wasn’t there anymore. And at least in the people that we’re going to read about, that’s what happens for them. She ran after she saw this. The stone had been taken up. She ran and came to Simon Peter and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved. And that’s John. This is John’s gospel. That’s John’s way of referring to himself. He doesn’t put his own name in there. He just says, the other disciple whom Jesus loved. What a great thing to be known by. Yeah, you’re one of the ones that Jesus loved. And I’m here to tell you, Jesus loves you. That old children’s song. It’s so true, so simple. But it’s so true. And I hope you hear that today. So, she comes and she tells, Simon Peter and the other disciples and said to them, “They’ve taken away the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid Him.”

Now you can kind of see that she hasn’t quite fully comprehended everything just yet in this particular moment. She says that the body has been removed, and whoever they are, they’ve taken Him away. And this is interesting, “…we don’t know.” And so, there’s a plural there. The other gospel records have two women, or some more than two women showing up at the tomb. So are the gospels contradicting each other? No, no, no, no, they’re both true. Mary Magdalene was there. And here she’s saying we don’t know where they laid Him. So, there is a reference to the others that may have been with her there as well. The problem is there’s a missing body, and she’s distraught about that, but she’s run to tell the disciples about it. Peter, look at verse three, he “therefore went, and the other disciple, and they were going to the tomb.” And the two, in verse 4, were running together. You can see them. “And the other disciple [meaning John] ran ahead faster than Peter, and came to the tomb first.” One of my favorite images in the Bible here, that this book, the Gospel of John, probably written around 90 A.D. and John who wrote it, still remembers this little detail. That old codger Peter and I was a young whippersnapper at the time, yes, I was, but I beat that old codger to the tomb, right?

But watch what happens, though. He, John, runs ahead faster to the tomb. And verse five, stooping and looking in, I want you to know there are about 5 or 6 different Greek words for visually looking at something that are coming up in the context of this entire passage. And I’m not going to try to pronounce all the Greek words for you. I’m just telling you they are there and they are different. And John is using the entire Greek vocabulary of seeing to communicate to us, his readers, that there were eyewitnesses of this. This isn’t just hearsay. They saw, they looked, they beheld. And we do in our English Bibles use different words. But he’s even in his, you know, the use of New Testament Greek. He’s saying the same thing. Look, stoop. He looked in. “…he saw the linen wrappings lying there; but he did not go in. Simon Peter therefore also came following him and entered the tomb; and he beheld the linen wrappings lying there, and the face-cloth, which had been on His head, [Jesus’] not lying with the linen wrappings, but rolled up in a place by itself.” Evidently, when Jesus went out for the day, He cleaned His tomb. He didn’t just leave everything a mess, He tidied it up again.

And so, Peter, this is fascinating to me, Peter, who’s shown up on the scene, John is still standing outside, hasn’t entered in, but he’s looked in and by the way, I think that happened because I think John was probably too religious for his own good. I think that, like a lot of Jews, they thought that if they entered a tomb like that or touched a grave, they would be ceremonially unclean. And sometimes religion gets in the way. Sometimes our religious systems get in the way of us actually seeing the beauty of what God has done, and the power and the glory that God wants us to see. Sometimes it’s not all, it’s sometimes, that does happen. And perhaps John didn’t enter in because he had not yet believed. We’re going to see him believing here in just a minute, which is really awesome. But Peter is a complete contrast. He shows up with lungs so full there. When I read this, it reminded me of a vacuum cleaner that’s full, that there’s too much dust and you need, you know, empty it out there. You guys have had vacuums that have filled up like that and, you know, oh, man, if I don’t clear this out, it’s not going to work very well. And I think that’s why Peter was there because he was trying to keep up with the young whippersnapper. After all, he shows up and for him, there’s not even the first thought of staying outside the tomb. He runs headfirst into the tomb. Why? I’m speculating, but I think that when you are a penitent, and when you know you need to be reconciled to God, you’re eager for that. There’s nothing that will stop you from getting to Jesus.

And in his desperation, I think that’s when the kingdom draws near. When we get desperate enough, we realize our need. We realize we’re the ones that need His salvation, His redeeming work in our lives. And he just had to get there and see for himself. And so, he runs in and this is what they find. “The other disciple [verse 8] and the one who had come first come to the tomb, and he saw [another word] and he believed.” And this is so interesting to watch the way they are. There’s this sort of this arc and curve of they’re coming to sort of the, the sort of the fullness of their Christian faith in a way. And it’ll continue on. We are studying the book of Acts together on Sundays here at The Village Chapel, and we’ve just gone through the study of the day of Pentecost just a few weeks back. And so, there’s yet some more that’s going to happen before they really go out on mission. But it’s already begun right here. You can tell that’s happened “For as yet they did not understand [verse nine] the Scripture, that He [Jesus] must rise from the dead.” So, the disciples went away again to their own homes, wherever they’re staying down there.

“But Mary,” this is interesting, the camera lens now goes to Mary, “… was standing outside the tomb weeping; and so, as she wept, she stooped and looked into the tomb; and she beheld two angels in white sitting, one at the head, and one at the feet, where the body of Jesus had been lying. And they said to her, ‘Woman, why are you weeping?’ And she said to them, “Because they have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid Him.’” Again, notice her presupposition in the moment there’s no body there. They must have taken Him away, and I don’t know where they’ve taken Him. “When she said this, she turned around, and beheld Jesus standing there, [verse 14] and she did not know that it was Jesus.” Why is that? Well, you’ve wept before, and your eyes so full of tears that for you it was like a veil over your ability to see and hear. In the middle of all of these verbs about seeing things and being astonished and filled with wonder, here is Mary, her eyes so full of tears, she doesn’t even recognize that it’s Jesus.

“And Jesus said to her, [verse 15] ‘Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking?’ Supposing Him to be the gardener, she said to Him, ‘Sir, if you have carried Him away, tell me where you have laid Him, and I will take Him away.’” See our first thought so often, especially those of us even in our own day and time, when we pray, we ask God for help and something, or wisdom and something, or guidance and something, and He gives it to us. I don’t know if this has happened to you before, but I’m constantly coming up with natural reasons why such and such a thing happened instead of just trusting that He made something happen. She’s come up with a natural conclusion through her veil of tears that that it must be the gardener, it couldn’t be Jesus. “And Jesus said to her, [verse 16, this is so beautiful] ‘Mary!’” Her name, just Mary. “She turned and said to him in Hebrew, ‘Rabboni!’ (which means teacher).” Now you’ve probably heard of modern people who attempt to make a romantic relationship, you know, concoct some kind of a romantic relationship between Mary and Jesus. And I just think that’s hogwash. That, you know, she’s calling Him Rabboni. I’ve been married 47 years. And Kim has yet once to call me Rabboni. I. And I got news for you, there’s nobody closer than the two of us. But she’s not going, “Jim, my teacher!” It’s not going to be, “Honey, what a teacher you are, baby.” You know, that’s not what’s happening here with Mary and with Jesus. Jesus was her teacher, not her romantic relationship thing.

He says to her, “Stop clinging to Me; for I have not yet ascended to the Father; but go to my brethren, and say to them, ‘I ascend to My Father and your Father, and My God and your God.’” See what Jesus is doing there? He’s sending her back with news of that. She has seen Him alive again. Right? And He’s also fulfilling the message that she’s to give to the disciples: My Father is your Father, My God is your God. Just tell them that. “Mary Magdalene came announcing to the disciples, ‘I have seen the Lord,’ and that He had said these things to her. When therefore it was evening, on that day, the first day of the week, and when the doors were shut where the disciples were…” We don’t know exactly where they were. Maybe they’re in the upper room, as some have said. I’m not really sure. But “…when the doors were shut where the disciples were for fear of the Jews…” so they’re still in hiding. They went in hiding and scattered when Jesus was arrested back in the garden before He was ever crucified. And most of them, except for John, are still there.

John’s the only one that we know of that ever went to the cross of Christ when He was on the cross, along with some of the women who were with him. But in terms of the 12 disciples, they’re in this room, locked door for fear of the Jews. “Jesus came and stood in their midst, and He said to them, ‘Peace be with you.’ Shalom. Peace be with you. It’s not just the absence of conflict. Peace is this sense of rest in the sovereignty of God. He’s going to say shalom three times in the verses I’m about to read, not just once, not just twice, three times. He’s the Prince of Peace. He’s there’s so many different monikers that were used to describe Jesus and what He has done, but He wants them to know the peace of God as He appears to them there. And certainly, that would be unsettling to them that He just appears in the room with them. “And when He had said this, He showed them both His hands and His side. The disciples therefore rejoiced when they saw the Lord.” So, they’ve gone from fear and trembling to Jesus calling them to peace and offering them He is their peace.

And now they’re rejoicing. “Jesus, therefore said to them again, ‘Peace be with you; [the second time] as as the Father has sent me, I also send you.’” So, there is this interesting beginning of their commissioning. Again, they’ve gone out on mission for Him while He was walking the planet. That’s true. But this is yet another step in the direction of what we read about in the book of Acts. And so He’s telling them, “I the risen Lord, your risen Savior, your master, your teacher, I send you as well, just as the Father has sent Me.” Verse 22: “When He had said this, He breathed on them, and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit.’” This is somehow different from what happens in Acts, Chapter 2. That’s true. But it yet nonetheless is significant enough that John includes it here. And I would argue this is a process. They’re getting to the place in Acts, Chapter 2, where the Lord Jesus will even tell them, “Wait for the Spirit.” The Spirit will come and empower them to be His witnesses. He says to them, even now, though, “If you forgive the sins of any, their sins have been forgiven them, if you retain the sins of any, they have been retained.”

He’s literally turning the Gospel over to them. He’s saying, “Here is the Gospel of grace, and I’m giving it to you, and I’m sending you out to preach the good news of forgiveness of sins, to hear the grace of God.” Interestingly, verse 24 tells us that “Thomas, one of the twelve, [the original 12 disciples] called Didymus…” That was his other name, which means the twin. And we don’t know the name of Thomas’s twin. And somebody came up to me after the last service and said, “If Thomas got called Didymus, then it means the twin is his twin, called Didymus.” I don’t know. That’s a great question, but I don’t know the answer to it. “But Thomas, who was called the twin, was not with them when Jesus came.” See, this is live body detail. Almost seems like meaningless detail. If this were just some kind of fable, some kind of legend, what do you believe? Leave this kind of stuff out. And yet here it is. It’s their live body detail. “The other disciples, therefore, were saying to Thomas later, ‘We have seen the Lord!’ But he said to them, ‘Unless I shall see in His hands the imprint of the nails, and put my finger into the place of the nails, and put my hand into His side, I will not believe.’”

In other words, Thomas who? This is where we get the name Doubting Thomas. Okay, this is him saying, “I need a little more empirical evidence. I don’t want to be a secondhand believer. You’re telling me this, but I don’t want secondhand faith. I want to see Him myself.” And it’s fascinating to me the distinction the New Testament continues to show us between willful unbelievers – I’m not going to believe no matter what – And people like Thomas in this particular moment who are saying, “I just I need to see that. I want to see Him myself.” And what happens tells us the difference, right? He’s an honest doubter, with an honest question. Maybe that’s you today. I don’t know. Are you here today with questions? You should be, because this is a really big God we’re talking about. But if you’re here with questions that have kept you from belief or from religious systems that have kept you from entering in, like John, or maybe you’re here today and you are desperate for grace, like Peter. Whatever the case. Or if you’re here like Mary and you’re just weeping from a broken heart of some kind, there are many of us in this room who have lost loved ones this past year, and it’s cut us deeply. And the only comfort that any of us know at all is coming from the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, who reminds us over and over and over again of the truths of this very passage.

This life is not all there is. Thomas wants to see the nail scars, and he wants to see the side that has been pierced. And unless he sees he says I will not believe. It’s volitional. So that’s what the will is about. There’s will involved in believing. So, are you willing to believe? Are you unwilling to believe? Makes a big difference. Some people look up in the night sky and see beautiful stars, constellations, wonderful things. Some people look up in the night sky and think, “It’s just rocks and gas.” Well, I thought about that with this last mission, Artemis, going up. I thought, you know, they’re going around to the moon and back, but the world, the universe is so massive and big that God has created. It’s so beautiful. It’s mind blowingly beautiful, you know? And so, do we believe that’s an accident or do we believe that’s design? Some people think it’s just an accident. Some people think it’s design. Some people think here that God couldn’t do these kinds of things. And I would say to you, if you believe there’s a God at all, if you believe the first sentence of the Bible, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the Earth…” This is nothing for that kind of God. Why wouldn’t you trust Him? Why wouldn’t you turn to Him and believe in Him?

Thomas will do that. Watch this: “And after eight days again, His disciples were inside and Thomas with them. Jesus came, the doors having been shut, and stood in their midst and said, ‘Peace be with you.’” Third time right there, right? “And He said to Thomas, [almost as if He read Thomas’s mind] ‘Reach here your finger, and see my hands; reach here your hand, and put it into My side; and be not unbelieving, but believing.’” Now, if Thomas is an unwilling believer, he doesn’t do it. He’s just against belief, no matter what. Firm and fixed. He wouldn’t even accept that offer. He would simply remain stuck and in concrete against it, at odds with God. However, he’s an honest doubter. He has honest questions. And here’s Jesus saying, “Here I am.” And He even knows exactly what it was Thomas called for and said would be the threshold of belief for him. And Jesus said, “I’m not going to smite you with lightning for not believing.” No, Jesus said, “Here, this is exactly what you are looking for. Here it is.” And you know what? We have no record that Thomas reached out and touched. We don’t know. Here’s what we do know though. Right here. He answered him and he said the proper response. “My Lord and my God!” recognizing who Jesus truly is.

“And Jesus said to him, ‘Because you have seen Me, have you believed? Blessed are they who did not see and yet believed.’” That blessing falls upon us as well. We didn’t see Jesus here in the flesh. He chose to come in the first century. What would it have been like if He came today? I don’t know, I just know that’s when He came. The question is, do I believe in Him? Do I trust in Him? Do I believe when He went to the cross, He paid the price for my sins? Do I believe in the glorious resurrection of Jesus? “And many other signs therefore Jesus also performed in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book…” Now John tells you why he wrote the book. What the strategy was, and what he hoped to accomplish in verse 31. We’ll close off our reading for today. These [signs] have been written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name.” See, John is not out to sell books. He’s not looking for a book deal. His concern is the glory of Christ, and that you and I would hear the message of God’s grace, a God who would take the initiative, come to Earth to die for us, to pay the price for our sins, and that we might trust that Jesus is indeed the Christ, the Son of God, the one who can save us.

All right. There’s so much here. First of all, let me summarize some of the answers to some of the questions I asked earlier. Is the resurrection a testable historical time? Yes. That’s what we believe here. It’s a testable historical claim about a real person, Jesus of Nazareth, who died, was buried, who was raised bodily on the third day. The resurrection is not just a flexible metaphor for springtime, for new beginnings, for hope, for triumph of a human spirit or a nonphysical spiritual event of some kind. This was a physical event. Because of the resurrection and the fact that it happened in space/time history, it validates Jesus’ claims about Himself. It grounds His offer of forgiveness for our sins. It proves He has defeated death, dismantling the permanence of death. And He has launched a new creation. Somebody give me a Presbyterian Amen. Yeah, that’s why this matters. He’s not just one of the millions of people who died on a cross back then.

This is a unique, sui generis event and person. The historical evidence for the resurrection is manifold. We’ve done it many years in a row. It includes the empty tomb. If you want to disprove the resurrection, show me the body. There’s no body. And there was no body in the first century. They even conspired in Matthew’s gospel; the religious leaders did, with the soldiers to hide the fact that the angels come and kick the stone out of the way. And Jesus had risen from the dead. The women as eyewitnesses makes no sense in the first century. If you are going to try to get people to accept the lie that Jesus had risen from the dead and you were trying to prop up His image or something like that, it just doesn’t make sense. Culturally, women were not considered credible eyewitnesses, and they would not have been good witnesses in a court of law at all. The transformation of the disciples; they went from whipped puppies, scared and running and hiding to bold. Once bound by fear, I believe were saying now, bold in faith. The multiple appearances of over 500 eyewitnesses. Sometimes a single person, sometimes two people, sometimes a group of people. Over and over and over again.

The Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 15 says over 500 witnesses, some of them who are even alive to the time of his writing what we call 1 Corinthians. In other words, you could go interview them if you wanted to talk to some eyewitnesses. There were many of them. The wildfire-like spread of the Gospel, of course, throughout the Roman Empire. The Christian faith goes like wildfire. Nobody at all coercing anyone to believe. And in this Christian faith, this Gospel is good news. We don’t press a sword up against you and make you believe, or a gun or a bomb or anything. This is good news, and it has been transforming like those disciples, many people’s lives, ever since then. There is number six, the transformed lives of Christians down through church history, over and over and over again. The stories are amazing where people have been going one way and their life was a ruin and a wreck and God got a hold of them. The Holy Spirit worked on them and brought them to repentance, which means simply to turn around away from our sin, to turn toward God in faith believing and their lives have been transformed in the process because of this power that God has manifested in the resurrection.

So, our theme, Christus Victor, Our Hope in Life and Death looks like something. What do we mean? That Christ was victorious? Precisely what was He victorious over or what was His mission in the world? It’s very clear in the New Testament, John, this same John, whom we read about in this passage earlier, wrote in his first letter, Chapter 3, verse 5, that He appeared in order to take away sins, and in Him there is no sin. So, folks, Jesus came, died on the cross, rose again to take away your sins. Oh, awesome! That’s great! And also in Chapter 3, verse 8 of the same letter, “the Son of God appeared for this purpose, to destroy the works of the devil.” Awesome, great! This is what Christ has indeed accomplished. He has been victorious in this, Chapter 4 of the same letter, verses 9 and 10. “By this the love of God was revealed in us, that God has sent His only Son into the world, so that we may live through Him.” Remember when he wrote in his gospel that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing in Him you might find life in His name? He’s still writing about it in the first letter: “And this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.”

So, Christ conquers the cosmic powers and atones for our sin by taking our sin on Himself and taking the full weight of God’s curse of death against sin in His body on the cross. The victory is achieved precisely because the penalty is paid. There have been lots of theologians who have argued about Christus Victor, and about substitutionary atonement over the years, all the way back to Augustine, Anselm, Abelard, and more recently Aulén, and all of those theories. I’m not really interested in those as much as holding this all together that because Christ substituted, He took my place, because of that, He has been victorious and He’s victorious. And that’s why He could substitute Himself. So, they’re both sides of the same coin. We hold them together when we start talking about Jesus being victorious. Paul the Apostle put it this way in Colossians, “When you were dead in your transgressions and uncircumcision of your flesh, He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our transgressions, having canceled the certificate of death consisting of decrees against us which was hostile to us, He’s taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross. And when He had disarmed the rulers and authorities, He made a public display of them having triumphed over them through Him.”

This is God the Father is the first He and “triumph through Him” through Christ. Now that’s all in the past tense. Do you see that? Oh, look on the screen. It’s all in the past tense. This isn’t about you being a good little boy or girl this week. This isn’t about how you dressed up and came to church on Easter. It’s not about that. I mean, I’m so glad we did. I’m so glad we’re all here. It’s awesome. It’s amazing. But that’s not what your salvation rests on. It’s all about what Christ has accomplished. Already done. Price paid. This is amazing! Christus Victor is cosmic. It means Jesus has accomplished the decisive victory over sin, death and Satan. Powers of evil, yes, some of this on a cosmic scale. That’s true in every realm of reality. Christ has been victorious. This is massive. You’ve got to get this. See, the resurrection is not just a heartwarming story, because it’s not just about warming your heart. It’s about reminding you of the victory that Christ has accomplished on your behalf for you so that you might walk in the light of the freedom of His grace on offer to you without a price.

It’s not about whether you get it right. It’s about Him and what he has done. The cross accomplished it and the resurrection proclaimed it. It’s quite simple like that. Fleming Rutledge in her book The Undoing of Death, which I think is really an excellent book, emphasizes that the victory of the cross and the empty tomb are the apocalyptic novum that is the new, the decisive factor, in redemption history. She says this: “The God who raises the dead and calls into existence things that do not exist has triumphed over the ruler of this world, and death shall have no dominion.” And then she goes all Episcopal on us: “The Lord is risen! The Lord is risen indeed!” Everybody! Yeah! See, I like a little bit of that in my life and in my relationship with my church and with my Lord. So, the resurrection, folks, is not just I have a hallmark movie happy ending. It’s not just the reversal of death. It is that, and thankfully, it’s that. I’m so glad about that. But the resurrection means death does not get the final word, and it also means that the worst thing will not be the last thing.

N.T. Wright puts it this way: “With the resurrection itself, a shockwave has gone through the entire cosmos: the New Creation has been born… The resurrection of Jesus is the only Christian guide to the question of where history is going.” So, the resurrection in scope and in significance is cosmic. It’s also global. Tim Keller puts it this way: The resurrection is the beginning of the restoration of all things. Jesus rose not just to give us life after death, but to begin the renewal of the whole world – and that renewal is moving toward the day when people from every nation, tribe and tongue [and literally everywhere] will together reflect the glory of God.” That’s just amazing that he’s borrowing from Revelation, Chapter 5. And it’s the heavenly vision of where worship ends up in front of the lamb, literally people from every tribe and tongue, every nation that sort of thing. And we’ve said it a bunch of times around here at The Village Chapel is on the first day in heaven the most often heard thing that anybody says is going to be this, “What are you doing here?”

It’s going to be said of me. It’s going to be said of you. Likely somebody is going to be. Well, I didn’t know it was that. I didn’t know that was what He meant to do. And yeah, He did mean to do that. And it’s an amazing cosmic thing that’s global, but it’s also personal. The cross defeats sin, death and Satan judicially and decisively. And the resurrection defeats sin and death and Satan historically and publicly. But notice how personal it gets with Mary. She’s such a great example there at the tomb. All He does is say her name and the lights go on. And some of you have heard Him call your name. You’ve had that defining moment when He called you to believe in Him and to trust in Him. The victory of Christ is cosmic, global and personal. In other words, Jesus didn’t just win the victory for the whole world and the whole cosmos. He won it for you and for me as well. I love the way the old 19th and 20th century hymn writer Eliza Hewett summed it up in her hymn My Faith Has Found a Resting Place. She says, “I need no other argument. I need no other plea. It is enough that Jesus died…” Finish it. “…And that He died for me.” That’s right.

The death of Jesus on the cross, His beautiful, glorious, wonderful resurrection – two sides of the same coin. What God has accomplished through substitutionary atonement, taking our place on the cross. That’s right. But being victorious over all the powers of sin and over death itself and over Satan as well. Stott put it this way: “We are not to regard the cross as defeat and the resurrection as victory. Rather, the cross was the victory won and the resurrection the victory endorsed, proclaimed, and demonstrated. If the resurrection is the divine declaration that the cross was effective, then the cross is the divine victory over sin, death, and the devil.” Yes, well said. Now I’m surprised by, sometimes, all of the theologians that have wanted to argue and parse all of this out and make a mess of things, but I love it when somebody comes along and just puts it so simply that even I, with my simple little mind, can start to really understand it. Such a writer was C.S. Lewis, and I know you’re familiar, most of you, with his book Mere Christianity. If you have not read that ever in your life before, I highly recommend it. I read it every single year, at least once. It is a great book.

And toward the end of the book, he’s speaking about what God has accomplished and will accomplish: “This world is a great sculptor shop. We are the statues. And there’s a rumor going around the shop that some of us are someday going to come to life.” Easter is a major defining moment on a cosmic level, on a global level, and on a personal level. If you’ll turn to Him and believe, if you’ll turn to Him and trust Him as Lord and Savior, let’s pray: Lord, thank You for this text. Thank You for what happened here in space/time history that we get to celebrate it. And just as the kids have put these beautiful flowers in this brutal wooden cross with all of its holes made by nails, we’re so grateful to You, Lord, that You have brought life out of death, that You took our sins to the cross. You paid the price once and for all. And Lord, You atone for all my sins past, present and future, and for my friends as well. Lord, draw us to Yourself. Holy spirit, help us understand that the power that You exerted in raising Jesus from the dead is also directed at us, so that You might bring us to new life. And I pray that for each and every one of us here in this room right now, and those who might be watching online, we turn to You. We thank You. We love You. In Jesus’ name we pray this. Amen. Amen.

Songs, Readings & Prayer

Songs:

“Christ the Lord Is Risen Today“ by Charles Wesley, arr. Bailey, Mickle
“Crown Him With Many Crowns“ Matthew Bridges, Godfrey Thring arr. Bailey, Mickle
“Victory in Jesus (Christ Won the Victory)“ Words and Music by E.M. Bartlett, Matt Boswell, Keith Getty & Kristyn Getty, Arr. by Samuel Wilson and Paul Campbell
“Jesus Keep Me Near the Cross“ lyrics by Fanny Crosby, music by William H. Doane
“In Christ Alone“ by Keith Getty & Stuart Townend, Arr. Dave Cleaveland, Orchestrated: Paul Campbell
“Christus Victor“ by Keith Getty, Kristyn Getty. Matt Boswell, Matt Papa, Bryan Fowler
“Doxology” by Thomas Ken and Louis Bourgeois
All songs are used with permission. CCLI License No. 2003690

Looking for our Hymns of the Week or resources to worship anytime? We’ve curated a playlist of hymns TVC Worship has led over the years on our YouTube Channel!

Call To Worship: Resurrection Sunday

Leader: Who is the resurrection and the life?
People: Jesus said, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die.”

Leader: What does God promise to all who believe?
People: “If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.”

Leader: Will anything separate us from the love of God in Christ?
People: No! We can be “sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor
things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Leader: What will God do someday soon?
People: “He will swallow up death forever, and the Lord God will wipe away every tear.”

All: By dying He destroyed our death, and by rising again restored our life; Jesus Christ our Lord.
Alleluia! Amen!

Classic Prayer: Easter Prayer

Oh, to the praise of our great God, the Invisible One who came as the Visible One – to pay a great debt we could not pay…to clear away the gloom of sin, the doom of death, the ancient guilt, the stain of exile.

Jesus, You are Eternal Word, You are Risen Savior, Perfect Lamb of God. You are the last Adam in all excellence, yet You willingly bore all the weight of all our sin. You are initiating love, saving love, sovereign grace. By Your dying, You destroyed our death. By Your rising You restored our life. So that we are kindled, not extinguished. Welcomed, not banished. Rejoiced over, redeemed, abided with and dwelled within.

Regard and have mercy on us Holy Spirit govern and guide us. Give us right understanding, that, humbled for receiving Your mercy and favor, (which was not because of our goodness, but because of Yours,) we might rejoice and praise You with thankful hearts, worship You for the living hope of Your resurrection, and live confidently in the imperishable, undefiled and unfading inheritance of our adoption!

So now preserve us with Your watchful care. Set our troubled hearts at rest. Give peace in our times and day by day increase our faith and certainty and hope, because of Christ in whose name we pray Amen.

TVC Prayer Ministry

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